


The Enormity of My Desire

by searchforthescars



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gideon the Ninth Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Other, camilla's delirium is heartbreaking, graphic details of blood injury and illness, post-gideon the ninth, so speculative it's not even funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24829855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchforthescars/pseuds/searchforthescars
Summary: “Cam, what do I do?”Don’t call me that, you try to croak. It’s a blasphemous nickname. It doesn’t belong to the Third.“Get up, Camilla.”Your brain is burning up too, then. Why else would you hear your necromancer’s voice? Of course the pitch is perfect. You would know his voice anywhere. Even at the end of the world.---After the battle with Cytherea, Camilla Hect burns and remembers.
Relationships: Camilla Hect & Palamedes Sextus, Camilla Hect/Palamedes Sextus
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	The Enormity of My Desire

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags. I don't want to gross anyone out.
> 
> This can either be platonic or romantic, you read it how you want. I Ship It, but totally respect that not everyone does. Also, all errors are mine and this was unbetaed, so roast me for any errors
> 
> All of the reviews on [You Know What I Am](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598717) inspired this, so THANKS :)))))) Thanks also to the Discord - I hope this lives up to your expectations and my hype.

“I varied my velocities, watched myself sleep. Something’s not right about what I’m doing but I’m still doing it —  
living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor, I would keep falling.  
The enormity of my desire disgusts me.”

–Richard Siken, “Birds Hover the Trampled Field"

* * *

_She is six and he is five and there is a knife in her hand and a piece of wood in his._

_“You can hit it,” he says, voice a collection of dry lowercase letters as he props the plank against the farthest wall. It isn’t even real wood, but neither of them know what the real material is called and, anyway, her blade can sink into it as good as anything. “Go on, Cam.”_

_A swing. A throw. The blade lands true. He nearly cheers before remembering they aren’t even supposed to be in this hallway. He is to be at lessons. She is to be at Swordsman’s Spire with her fellow Aspirants._

_“You can do anything with that knife,” he tells her admiringly, shoving his glasses up his nose._

_She crosses the room. Pulls the blade free. “I sure hope so.”_

* * *

You wake up burning.

The memory of childhood knife-throwing haunts you as you stir, body disturbing the hollow left by your necromancer’s scrawny frame the last time he laid on this mattress. That was the knife you lost, the knife you threw at Cytherea with your one good arm after-

You can’t stop the groan that leaves your lips. Beside you, someone moves. You throw out your good arm. Catch the fabric of a sleeve between your fingertips. It’s wrong. It’s not him. Your body tries to tense, but your muscles don’t cooperate. Your body shakes instead, and you let out another low cry.

“Camilla?” A woman’s voice. Scratchy. Coronabeth. _God_ , your shoulder hurts. The spot where Cytherea ran you through throbs. You can’t even move it without your body shrieking in pain.

“Camilla.” The voice, again. Cold fingers, scrabbling on your overheated skin. Prying apart the layers of gauze and tape. You try to wet your lips with your tongue. No words leave your mouth. “It’s just getting worse.” The shrillness of her panic makes your head throb. “Cam, what do I do?”

 _Don’t call me that_ , you try to croak. It’s a blasphemous nickname. It doesn’t belong to the Third.

“ _Get up, Camilla._ ”

Your brain is burning up too, then. Why else would you hear your necromancer’s voice? Of course the pitch is perfect. You would know his voice anywhere. Even at the end of the world.

You can feel the worry rolling off Coronabeth in waves when you laugh a little. It is the end, you suppose. Of your world, if not of the galaxy at large.

One necromancer-turned-supernova. One false necromancer. One cavalier without a purpose.

You turn to the liar. “Get the bag,” you whisper, propping yourself up on your elbows because you’ll be damned if you ignore his wishes. 

Coronabeth finds your medical supplies. You drag yourself upright somehow. When your head spins, you hold your breath for one long, desperate moment until the urge to dry-heave passes.

“ _I_ _t needs disinfecting first._ ” You make a face. “ _Send her for hot water to draw out some of the infection._ ”

You numbly relay the instructions to Coronabeth, who scurries off as if relieved to have a task. The moment she’s gone, you sag backward, catching most of your weight on your good arm as you lower yourself down to rest. 

“I can’t do this,” you breathe, throat thick with pain and tears. You don’t cry. Camilla Hect _does_ _not_ cry. 

You lay back down. Your movements have disrupted your warm spot in the bed and permanently displaced the shape of his body that was once beneath your own.

“ _Yo_ _u don’t have a choice, Cam_.”

When Coronabeth returns, she washes both salt stains from your cheeks and infection from your wound.

* * *

_They are twelve years old and Camilla has not yet told him what she has done._

_“…so the patient doesn’t go into shock when their systems are unsupported,” Palamedes is saying excitedly, glasses glinting in the sterile overhead lights. “Fascinating, for a machine to be manufactured with such sensitivity in mind.”_

_Camilla is standing at a soldier’s ease behind him, a half-step behind, in practice for a task she has yet to be assigned. She knows she should be listening, but her mind is away in the Warden’s meeting room, from where she is an hour away from being summoned._

_“You’re not listening.” Palamedes is not disappointed, just stating a fact. “What are you thinking about?”_

_She takes a breath. Lifts her head, stares him in the face that is more familiar to her than his own. “I applied to become your cavalier primary. They’re making their decision today.”_

_Palamedes’s gaze stutters, shifting from shock to confusion and back. “You- what? Why?”_

Because I want to stay with you forever _, is what she wants to say. What she knows, somewhere deep inside, she will regret not saying out loud for the rest of her life._

_“Because you’re my best friend,” she says instead. “And because you wouldn’t take anyone else and you know it.”_

_“That is true.” Palamedes smiles a hesitant smile. He reaches out his hand. Camilla takes it. “You’d take the oath?” he asks “One flesh, one end?”_

_“If the Wardens approve.”_

_He squeezes her hand, hard. Her callouses brush over his. “They won’t have a choice. I’d take you anyway, consequences be damned.”_

_Camilla wants to laugh. A strange joy bubbles in her chest. She quiets it by releasing his hand. “Thank you.”_

_“Don’t thank me yet.” His face stretches into a grin. Sometimes, if she squints, she can see hints of the man he will become. “You’re the one who will have to keep me alive.”_

* * *

Delirium is a strange and illogical thing.

You can see yourself, panting and feverish, sprawled out over the dusty mattress, so warm Coronabeth can no longer sleep beside you but too weak to apologize, let alone move aside. In this dream, you are standing over yourself. He is with you, ghostly hands fluttering over your sweaty forehead and tangled hair, the red and swollen flesh of your shoulder.

“You’re dying, Camilla,” he says. 

“I know.” You lean your forehead against his shoulder. His arm encircles your lower back automatically. “I can’t stop it.”

“You’ve given up,” he admonishes. “Come now, Cam, be reasonable. What did you think was going to happen? Did you assume I was going to live forever?”

You want to hit him, but even in your own mind, you are too tired to do anything but let him hold you. “I wasn’t supposed to outlive you,” you breathe. Your eyes sting. You blink, hard.

“Who says you have?” He taps your cheek until you lift your head. His eyes are a limitless dark grey. “Even if that is true, our house gains nothing if you die. I gain nothing if you die.”

“Indubitable, Warden,” you say, just to see the rueful smile dance over his lips one more time.

“Stop that.” His face is sad. “Wake up, Camilla. And do so with a fighting spirit, please. I am in no mood to watch you wither away. I did enough of that with Dulcinea.”

* * *

_Camilla is seventeen and Palamedes is sixteen, and this is the third time in as many hours she has had to haul him away from an argument over resources._

_“She doesn’t have_ time _, Camilla!” he frets, pacing their room, cleaning his glasses so aggressively she can see the frames bending. “And they don’t even care!”_

_“Of course they don’t.” You sprawl out atop the bed, twirling one of your knives between your fingers. “They think it’s a fool’s errand.”_

_“Do you?” He stops short. Stares at her until she sits up. “Do you think this is foolish, Cam?”_

_She blinks at him. He blinks at her. “No,” she says, tone carefully neutral. “I don’t.”_

_He stands there for a long moment. She can see the gears of his mind turning. “She needs to be somewhere where she is cared for. I wish… I wish we could bring her here.”_

_Camilla doesn’t, but she’ll never say it. All Dulcinea will ever do is hurt him, and all Camilla can ever do is try to mitigate the damage. Sleepless nights, nervous breakdowns, endless hours pacing and learning and writing all for what? An inevitable end?_

_But what else can Camilla do, really?_

_“Cam.” She looks up at him. He’s looking at her like he can read her brain like a book. The knife is still hanging from her fingers. He steps forward and plucks it free, setting it aside on the mattress._

_“Cam,” he says again. “I’m not going to choose her over you. You know that, right?”_

_“I know, Warden.”_

_His hands come up to cup her face, fingers twitching against her cheekbones. He sighs, frustrated, and bites into his lower lip._

_“What?” Her voice is tight. If he lowered his pinky (_ how the hell are his hands so big? _) he could probably feel her heartbeat accelerating underneath her jaw._

_“Why don’t you call me by name?”_

_Now you are well and truly reeling. “I...do.”_

_He shakes his head. “No, you don’t. Not even when we’re alone.”_

_She doubts he remembers, because it wasn’t something he read, but she does, because she always remembers him:_ “You know I love you, Cam, right?”

_“Did I say something?” he asks._

Yes. _“No.”_

_He leans forward. Presses his lips to her forehead._

_“Palamedes.” It’s supposed to sound shocked, but when it leaves her mouth, it sounds only...something. She doesn’t know what._

_When they separate, it is only because his mother appears at the door, another letter from Dulcinea in hand._

* * *

Your fever has broken. Coronabeth is gone. So are all your weapons.

This list of facts comes to you in fragments. You are far from healed, but you get up anyway, because you can never ignore a damn thing your necromancer says, and if your fever-addled brain can perfectly conjure his voice, then you can certainly heed what he had to say.

“ _When did you ever listen to me?_ ” you can hear him asking, dry voice slicing through the sarcastic words.

“I listen to you when you make sense, Warden,” you grumble back, wincing at the sound of your unused voice.

The door slams open. You reach up for a weapon that isn’t there. Coronabeth regards you, chest heaving.

“You’re up!” She runs forward and throws her arms around you, minding your bad arm. “Oh thank the King Undying, I was so scared!”

You’re shocked, and oddly touched, to hear tears in her voice. “I’m fine, Crown Princess,” you say, touching the space between her shoulder blades with your free hand. “What was all the rush about?”

She leans away from you, eyes sparkling. “Come downstairs.”

You lack the energy to argue. Step by step, you haul your aching body down the stairs, following Coronabeth to the place where Cytherea died. She stands beside the rubble, and it is only then that you see your weapons strapped to her belt.

“Give those back,” you say. It comes out harsh. 

“I will, once you can use them. It’s an incentive to heal.” Coronabeth winks. You remain as still as the stone that surrounds you. He gave you those blades. They do not belong to the Third.

“Why did you bring me here?” you ask, if only to tamp down the rising well of grief roiling your stomach. Physical pain and grief cannot coexist; now that your body is not dying, it will settle for feeling.

You dig your fingers into the still-healing spot on your arm where Marta the Second’s blade pierced near your ulna. The pain makes you hiss, but brings the world back into sharp relief. You ignore the Warden’s voice in your head that tells you to stop.

“Someone has been here.”

You release your arm. “What?”

Corona points. “There. From the center of the collapse. The rocks were moved aside. And there was blood on some of them.”

She turns to you, those odd eyes fixed on your face. “What happened? And where is Palamedes, anyway? I thought he was with you, but when he never showed up, I… Oh. He’s dead.”

You nod. When her face falls, your stomach twists. Behind the two of you, a rock clatters to the floor. There’s a faint tapping sound, like water dripping on stone. Or maybe you’re making it all up. The blood roaring in your ears and the dizziness clouding your vision are starting to take its toll.

“How long has it been?” Best to start getting your bearings somewhere.

“Four days.” 

Four days. It felt like an eternity. You don’t even realize you’re swaying on your feet until Coronabeth comes to lend you support.

You look up at her. Her eyes are soft. “I’m sorry, Camilla.”

“Don’t apologize.” Your eyes are burning again. Your hands start to shake. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“How did it happen?”

“ _As I recall, a fool of a necromancer attempted to blow himself up_ ,” you hear him say. Your mind’s recreation of his tone does nothing to ease the tears welling in your eyes

Coronabeth’s breath hitches. Her hands spasm around your body. “What is it?” you ask, prepared to disarm her if needed. “What’s wrong?”

“Cam. _Look_.”

You turn. The figure silhouetted against the ruins of Canaan House flinches forward. You shove at Coronabeth’s arms until she releases you.

“You,” you say, pointing one trembling finger, “have a _lot_ of explaining to do.”

The laugh she hears is not in her head. “You didn’t die. Good. I knew you had it in you.”

* * *

_They are both eighteen and they are conducting an experiment._

_“I just want to see what it’s like,” Camilla says, sitting on the edge of Palamedes’s desk. “What’s the harm?”_

_“It’s bad practice,” her necromancer counters. “And bad morals.”_

_“You give a little of you, I give a little of me. Transference, not theft,” Cam counters._

_Palamedes sighs. “Fine.”_

_Camilla can’t quantify or qualify how it feels when the Warden touches her soul. It feels warm, somehow, but also like her body is being flash-frozen from the inside out. But there’s also something that slots into place. That feels_ right _. It’s the same feeling she gets when he smiles at her, or tucks her under his arm, or calls her_ Cam _in that fond tone._

_Togetherness. One flesh, one end._

_She is in pain when the experiment ends, and Palamedes berates himself for it. When he stops his tangent long enough to ask her how it felt, she can’t help but smile._

_“What?” he asks, voice quivering ever-so-slightly._

_“Now you really can’t go anywhere,” Camilla teases. “Our souls are linked. I could theoretically drag you back from the River by sheer will.”_

_That’s not how it works - or so the Sixth House heir and cavalier primary think - but the thought is a comfort._

_Palamedes reaches for Camilla’s hands and squeezes. “You would never have to,” he promises. “I’m never going to leave you alone.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so my completely unfounded, probably pointless theory is that Palamedes found a way to blow everything up without actually killing himself. This is based solely on the fact that him fucking off to die without telling Camilla goodbye is just about the most out-of-character thing for him. But anyway, hope you enjoyed!
> 
> You can also yell @ me on [Tumblr](http://infernalandmortal.tumblr.com)


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